Pyreolophore

The Pyreolophore was an early internal combustion engine, and the first such engine built to power a boat. It was invented in the early nineteenth century in Chalon sur Saone, France, by the brothers Nicephore and Claude Niepce, with Nicephore later going on to invent photography. The brothers successfully tested a prototype in 1807, and on July 20 of that year Napoleon Bonaparte granted them a ten year patent after the engine powered a boat upstream on the river Saone. Their own patent application described the engine's driving principle as air dilated by fire, and it ran on controlled dust explosions of experimental fuels including lycopodium powder, crushed coal dust, and resin. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/